AWS Launches Kiro: Agentic IDE with Specs, Hooks, and MCP Built In
Amazon has publicly launched Kiro, an agentic IDE distinct from CodeWhisperer and Q Developer. Its core primitive is spec-driven development: structured requirements are transformed into implementation plans that agents execute. Beyond specs, Kiro ships with agent Hooks (file-change triggers), Skills (specialized context + tools bundles), Powers (domain knowledge extensions), and native MCP server integration. One-click migration from VS Code. Available immediately on macOS, Windows, and Linux. The GitHub repo is trending today with the open-source release.
Why It Matters
Kiro is Amazon's direct answer to Claude Code, Cursor, and OpenCode — and it conforms to the emerging Agent Skills open standard, making it interoperable with Google Stitch and OpenAI Codex skills. AWS entering the agentic IDE race with first-party infrastructure backing signals this is no longer a niche developer-tooling category.